The number of unstabilised flight approaches during landing in the country and risk-bearing airprox incidents in the Indian airspace reduced substantially in 2023, according to aviation regulator DGCA. An AIRPROX is a situation where the distance between aircraft and their relative positions and speed are such that safety may be compromised.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has prepared its annual safety review for 2023. In a release on Wednesday mentioning the review, the watchdog said the number of unstabilised approaches that continue to land per ten thousand approaches, has shown a continuous decreasing trend with a reduction of approximately 23 per cent.
This reduces the risk of runway excursions and abnormal runway contact, DGCA said. As per the regulator, the number of risk-bearing airprox per million flights over the Indian airspace was reduced by 25 per cent. Generally, airprox refers to two aircraft being in close proximity beyond permissible limits.
“The number of GPWS/EGPWS warnings per 10,000 departures has reduced by 92 per cent and achieved the target. This reduces the risk of controlled flight into terrain,” the release said. GPWS is a Ground Proximity Warning System and EGPWS is an Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System.
DGCA publishes the National Aviation Safety Plan (NASP) identifying the National – High Risk Categories of Occurrences (N-HRCs) in line with the ICAO Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP). The performance of NASP in terms of safety performance indicators and safety performance targets is assessed annually and published in the form of the Annual Safety Review (ASR).
“It presents the analysis of the aggregate safety data derived from the DGCA database and external sources such as ICAO iSTARS for the preceding year,” the release said.
